Shaul Mukamel
University of California-Irvine, CA·Chemistry
Light is made of photons, and photons can be quantum mechanically linked, or "entangled", so that measuring one tells you about another. Ordinary laser light cannot do this.
- Fields
Chemistry
Physics
- Topics
quantum light
entangled photons
nonlinear spectroscopy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Develop models and computational tools to predict and interpret spectroscopy signals made with entangled photons, combining electronic structure and quantum dynamics simulations.
- Simulate how molecules in optical microcavities form polaritons, hybrid light-matter states, and how many molecules respond together to a shared cavity mode.
- Predict stimulated Raman signals that directly track molecules passing through conical intersections inside microcavities, using nonadiabatic dynamics and wavepacket simulations.
- Use photon coincidence measurements and quantum interferometry to design ways of probing molecular chirality, and apply the new techniques to energy transfer in molecular aggregates and photosynthesis.
More about the research
Could quantum light reveal molecular events that classical light misses, and even control how molecules respond to light? This theory and computation project develops models and simulation tools to predict and interpret new kinds of light-based measurements, or spectroscopy, that use the quantum nature of light.
Why it matters
Understanding how energy and charge move through molecular aggregates and photosynthetic systems could, over the long term, guide the design of artificial light-harvesting systems that turn sunlight into chemical energy efficiently. The new quantum-light spectroscopy tools may also give chemists finer timing, spectral and spatial windows on fast photochemical events.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tianquan Lian
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Chemistry
Extend electron spin lifetimes in semiconductor nanoplatelets by increasing electron–hole separation in three-component nanoplatelet heterostructures (crystals built from layered materials), then use the best structures as donors.
Melanie Reber
University of Georgia, GA·Chemistry·Early-career
Build ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy inside external optical enhancement cavities, which recycle laser light through the sample, to reach the sensitivity needed to probe the low molecular densities of a molecular beam.
Dmitri Babikov
Marquette University, WI·Chemistry
Develop the Quantum Annealer Eigensolver (QAE), an algorithm for D-Wave quantum annealers, to calculate rotational-vibrational spectra of molecules and describe chemical reactivity.
The school
University of California-Irvine: 46 labs on PI Pages, $645M a year on research, 524 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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